But back to understanding my dad.  All my life, Daddy was this… lofty ideal…  I couldn’t put a stamp on who he was or what he was.  He was there… he worked hard.  But he found so much more enjoyment outside the house.  So much so that he’d come home and I suppose be reminded of all the things he was running to the outside to get away from.  Family. Responsibility.  Rigamarole.  At least… that’s what I thought.  But living here now… the ONLY person in the whole edifice that doesn’t share a blood line with anyone else but the brand new baby… I’m understanding my father more.  Growing up, we were literally SURROUNDED by my mother’s family.  All the aunts and uncles we met and knew were my mom’s brothers and sister.  Grandma that raised us was her mom.   Only living Grandpa was her dad.  Countless cousins that surrounded us were from her side of the family – be it Grandpa Osmin’s family or Granny’s side.  I would sometimes wonder where Dad’s family was – but they were mostly all in Haiti still.  The ones that did come visit – my cousin Marlene and my uncle Gabriel – i remember with fondness.  Maybe mostly because they made an effort to come up and be a part of the family.  To get to know us in some way.  By the time his sister, my aunt Yvonne, moved up and lived with us for sometime, I was already grown – an adult so it didn’t really matter to me and I considered her presence more of an inconvenience because she got my room and I had to sleep in the living room for the length of her stay.  But while I was being raised I remember mom’s family coming to live with us for months at a time as they made their exodus to the Americas.  As a kid I thought nothing of it.  It was fun.  More family… more stuff to do and people to talk to.  But now I think about my dad…. cornered. In a house full of “family” that wasn’t his family.  His only relation was to those little rug rats running around.  No family in the city… state… country…  No one who knew him from before he was a husband or a dad or an American, even.  Just his wife’s family.  And their chatter.  And their ways.  And their togetherness, which you seem to be perpetually outside of.  None of them understand how stuff was done when he was growing up in his particular household.  His father had passed when he was just 11 and they had to make it happen w/o an adult male presence in the household.  Dad had to learn how to cook so he could help his mom.  Being the youngest and the only survivor between he and his twin, he loved his mom extra much.  Shit.  We barely felt it when his mom died and he traveled down to Haiti alone to bury her.   How alone he must’ve felt in that realm.

The lonesomeness wouldn’t be so bad if when I did reach out to family, it was well received.  But they all sit there on their high horses all talking about “YOU don’t call.  YOU don’t write. YOU don’t visit.”  I guess I’m the only one with a phone, a pen or email and a car.  Either that or all their avenues are incoming only.  These same people I mentioned above who were all about family when they lived with us… fell away when mom died.  And I’m not sure what they expected of me.  Folks get confused because I LOOK like my mom but I am not her.   We don’t do things the same.  We don’t really have the same mannerisms.  And her tolerance for BS was way higher than mine.  My tongue is sharper too.  And it was mostly silenced out of respect for HER.    But now that she’s gone — all of them can get it.  They want to NOT answer their phones when I try to invite them to the baby’s christening – then FUCK them.  They want to wait upon invite after invite after invite all to just NOT show up then criticize that I don’t try hard enough?  FUCK them.  They want to never act like their phones work going out.  FUCK THEM.  I have narrowed my circle significantly.  The only family that tries to keep the ties: Domi.  Tante Sisi.  Ollie and his mom.  Oncle Vava (and i know he doesn’t stay in touch because of that ugly BITCH wife of his). Even Ginette who is only a family member by marriage stays in touch more than supposed real blood relation.  That’s it.

The rest of the so-called family can heed this message:

The original nuclear died off with Mom and Dad.  All the nuclear i need is here.  Hubby.  Baby.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

-Simon & Garfunkel

*

When I was growing up, through the majority of the child hood I could remember, my mother held two jobs to make the ends meet (daddy worked one job himself).  In the daytime – a nurse’s aide at a private hospital in Jackson Heights.  At night, a cleaning lady for an office building in the city (round abouts 48th street and Madison or so).  So her schedule from what I could tell and what I remember was as follows:

6:00AM – wake up / get dressed / eat / get mind right
6:45AM – get out the house to walk or take the bus or occasionally get a ride from dad to work
7:15AM – report to ICU for work
12:00PM – Lunch time / call kids / get food / rest feet
3:00PM – quitting time / walk home / catch bus / get a cab
3:30PM – eat / nap / watch General Hospital
4:30PM – get up / shower / change
5:00PM – get out the door / train to the city
5:30PM – report to office building and begin cleaning
12:00AM – quitting time / train home / get ride home from husband (sometimes with / sometimes without kids)
12:45AM – get home / eat / sleep

The only time I was home and sentinent was uring that 3:30 – 5:00 period.  I was home from elementary school so I got to see her for a few moments while she was awake; had to be quiet when she watched her stories; watched her sleep and followed her around the house while she prepared for the next job, catching whiffs of Yves Saint Laurent or L’Air Du Temps wafting in her wake as I did what I did best then – worshiped her and being in her presence.  Then 5:00PM would come and I’d do everything in my power to try  to convince her to stay home.  I wanted her to think that being home with me was the best thing she could possibly choose at that time.  Could I pretend to be sick?  Could I tell her we had really fun stuff lined up if she decided to stay home?  When all else failed I’d resort to crying.  Painful, terrible sobs.  The “i will literally die if you leave” style crying.  And when she walked out the door, I would crawl under a table so I didn’t have to see her go and finish my crying there.   Strange that as I type this, I tear up.  You’d think 30 years later – this would be a non issue.  I HATED to see her leave.  I always did.  But somehow – in those 2 1/2 hours per weekday and random weekends she had free – she was MOM.  No one could take her place.  She was my primary caregiver and my idol.  Stars in my eyes for her.  Even to this day at her memory.  Grandma pitched in 100% to raise us and she held an extremely high place in my heart.  2nd mother.  She was there when we got home from school – meals prepared – occupied house so we wouldn’t have to latchkey. She couldn’t help us with homework really because she spoke MUCH more French and Kreyol than she did English.  And I have extremely fond memories of her.  She was Granny.  My favorite girl.  But Mom? was MOMMY.  Period.

So why can’t this translate for me with my little girl?  I’m reading a book about sleep training that recommends that she gets 14 – 15 hours of sleep a day.  a 1 hour nap in the morning; a  2hour nap early afternoon and then putting her down for the night from 7P – 7A (or 8P – 8A / 9P – 9A).  And I stopped reading right then.   Most nights? I don’t get home till 7P on a good day from work.  If I put her down at 8… i get one hour of her?  In the morning it’s all hustle and bustle to get to work.  So would I only get the 1 – 2 hours to actually get to interact with her per weekday that my mom did?  The whole day she will be with Grandma.  And let me disclaim:  I know I am EXTREMELY LUCKY that E’s mom is retired and extremely spry for 72 years old – PLUS? has an insatiable love for her only grandchild as it stands.  So much so that she’s willing to watch her every day while we are at work for as long as we’ll let her.  I realize there are new moms out there SCRAMBLING to find daycare and hating it and in that aspect I am sincerely blessed.  I had that growing up – a Grandmother whenever I needed her.  I feel poorly that my dearest only has on grandparent that she’ll ever actually have met (at least I had 3 and met all of them).  But as the fates show it – this Grandmother will be her everything if she lets her.  I know I will work in tandem with Ma Cora to get Theeny to where she needs to be – developmentally, spiritually, emotionally.   I just hate that I feel like I’m doing it remotely.   I hate that it’s kind of a toss of the coin whether she’ll be happy to see me at the end of the day or if I’ll be left asking myself “does she even recognize me?”  I feel so distant from her that the bonding hours we do currently have are the ones where she is the most cranky and fussy.  I get a tiny glimpse of my sweet happy little girl in the morning before I have to rush off to work.  I just don’t know what to do.  This is normal, I suppose…  every mom goes through this – right?

How do I get THROUGH – because I am really stuck on this and I’m not sure where the light will come from.  Maybe after this move, things will even out for me and I’ll feel better but as for right now?  I am pretty much all the way miserable.  Miserable at work because I miss her so much.  Miserable when I come home because she doesn’t seem to want to be bothered with me and I get to watch her have a better conversation with the ceiling fan than she would like to have with me.

I wish my mom was here so I could ask her how she did it.

I wish i didn’t have to figure that out.

*

Just nothing nothing nothing compares to being at home with my sweet shnooklie pie.  I miss watching her grow through out the day.  While the look of happiness and excitement on her face to see me come home is something brings me indescribable joy – I’d much rather revel in the varied expressions she’d share with me through out the day.  I find myself trying to cram a days worth of loving and caring for her into the 5 final hours of the day and the first 2 hours of the morning that I get with her.  Pretty much if I’m not breathing her … it seems pretty pointless.

I’m not to the point of melting down at my desk into tears.  It’s more… annoyance.  All things are hurdles that I need to fly over to get back to her and whatever she wants to do with me and for me.  Whether it’s to pitch a fit with me for cleaning her nose or if it’s actually turning towards me to nestle in close and go to sleep – which might seem like nothing but these little moments define me now.    I really LIVE for them.  Other things are just … in the way.

I’m sure I need a few more weeks to just even out.  But I LIKE being all about my baby.  She’s pretty effin fantastic to me and I am fiendish for the experience of her.

Mommy stuff.  3 more hours till I can go to her…

Blech.

*

It was nice having someone to download to every day.

I find myself holding it all in even more because there’s that constant reminder that your baby can feel your mood.  So I try to always be as genuinely happy around my little one as I can – even if it’s her I’m worrying about.  And I do.  A lot.  As a mother should, I suppose.  But it’s more suppression.  And why not talk to the Mr, you say?  Well… he tries.  Honest.  But he’s a man like all men and sometimes the sound of something besides my voice is more attractive.  And I get it.  Plus lately – there’s been a gap in the comm.  I say something, he hears something else and acts on what he heard – not necessarily what I said.  It’s a little frightening.  I don’t want to get to the point where I have to say “Could you repeat back what I said please?” cause that feels a lot like holding his hand like a little kid.  But there are some things I’ll have to do that with because I can’t risk him executing his interpretation. So to that point if I was to unload, I’d want some constructive feed back.  Not just him nodding his head hearing what’s on TV or him hearing something altogether different.

I’ve been chatting to my co-worker about networking more – for work purposes – but maybe this could be two fold.  Network just to increase the base of people that I know and open up my life to new and different voices.  I think I’ll try to start doing that right away.  Wish I had something to go to tonight along those lines.  Hubs is taking the cherub to his e-board meeting.  No real need to rush home.  It’ll just be empty.

Empty and cluttered with the makings of this move.  UGH.  More to think about.  Going back in.

*

We recently had our “last grown up night out” (also known as the baby shower) and in true Me fashion – i didn’t want the typical.  The wicker chair, the measuring of bellies, icebreaker games or the hat with the ribbons tied on.  I wanted a true to form celebration.  An all out party.  My being in this position at all in this life is a complete miracle that transcends frills and games.  I needed everyone to come out and party and have a good time.  And that’s what we did.  Folks traveled from near and far and came to pay respects to this little one on her way.  And we (they) drank and ate and some danced and chatted and made a joyful noise in her name.  I couldn’t have asked for it to be better or any other way.  At the end of the night, we went home with what we lovingly refer to as “Mount BabyMore” which is currently erected in our living room – a dazzling assemblage of …. pretty much EVERYTHING we asked for off of our registry – a lifetime worth of pink & green & brown & yellow clothing for the princess and gobs of delicious Haitian food!  If we’d ever thought for a moment that we weren’t part of a loving community, our faith was again renewed that we have a true VILLAGE around us and surrounding us that will be there for her.

Today, I got a gift that rocked me to the core.  A chapter Soror of mine sent me a note on Facebook telling me she found the perfect book for me.  Which at the time I poo-pooed… thinking it was probably another copy of “Good Night Moon” or something along those lines.  But I couldn’t fault her generosity.  She thought that much of me at all so I was grateful.  We made arrangements for her to drop the book off to me at my job.  The mail guy delivered it and I mused on the phone while I unwrapped the gift.  I hung up the phone and looked at the cover:

Ladder To The Moon

Beautiful artwork.  This definitely wasn’t Good Night Moon….

I opened the jacket and read the first few words of the book:

One cool new evening,
Suhalia asked her mama,
“What was Grandma Annie like?”
“She was like the moon,” her mother replied.
“Full, soft, and curious.
Your grandma would wrap her arms
around the whole world if she could.”
Mama gave Suhalia a hug.
“You have Grandma Annie’s hands.”
she said.

Within seconds, the uncontrollable tears and sobs rolled through me.  I raced to shut the door to my office before my team saw me in such a condition.  How did they know?  How would anyone else know how to describe my little mommy so perfectly with so few words? I stared at the cover again and regarded a full figured, light skinned, long haired, openhearted woman that reminded me so of my mom… and I cried more as I thought of reading this book to my little one… trying hard to make her know her Grandmother from afar.  I flipped through the rest of the book thinking of all the parallels.  They likened her to the moon… which now when I stare at the moon, I think of the night she died when I did the same.  And something told me she was up there.  She used to always advise me against sleeping under the moon because I’d go crazy (lunacy) – but I told her she was my moon, lighting my path in the darkest night.  And she never warned me against the moon again.  And in the book, she visits her granddaughter and takes her up to the moon.   Just like my mom visited me in my dream and swept me around Haiti one night and showed me her homeland from her perspective.

This WAS the perfect book… and it amazed me that Soror Ann didn’t have to be my best friend in the world.   She just had to pay attention a little and follow her heart.  I want to buy many of these books so that I’ll always have one to read my babies so they’ll always have a connection to their Granny Ti’Den.

Thank you, Soror Ann… Thank you.

*

Him: The baby is going to LOVE you.
Me: You think so??
Him: HECK Yeah!
Me:  *screwface*  I mean… what makes you say that?
Him: Well…  did you love YOUR mom?
Me:  Are you kidding?  LOVE her?  I worshipped her.  She was my idol.  There was no woman prettier, smarter, more amazing or kinder in the world.  She was everything.
Him: *”i told you” so look on his face* – well. There you have it.

The verbal conversation stopped there, but in my mind, I responded – but… all that my mom did… she fully deserved that love and admiration from me, my brother and anyone else who crossed her path.  The selflessness.  The sacrifices.  They were all apparant to me all my life.  What will I have done – outside of the surgeries and procedures to GET me pregnant (which might seem … well… self serving from a given angle) that will match that kind of angel-like behaviour that will merit admiration and love from this little one flipping about inside?

When I was an Amway Distributor, one of the philosophies they taught us was a concept called “Creating the Pull”.  They were grooming us all to be leaders, but what’s leading if you have no followers?  What’s worse – if you have proclaimed “followers” but no one wants to be where YOU, in particular, are.  So the concept of creating a pull – put enough distance between you and your “followers” in the achievement and attainment of dreams that makes it look like you are further ahead and wish they could hang with you but they’ve got x-amt of work to get done before they can achieve your success.  Accomplishing this by sending postcards from beautiful places that you’ve managed to be able to go as a result of your hard work and wishing they could be there… but they haven’t reached the success level required for them to earn that particular trip.  Or cars or clothes or free time… all the things they dangled before you as rewards for your work.  I’d gotten many a post card from tropical places “wishing I was there”.  And it made me want to work harder so that I could participate.  I wanted to belong to THAT group.

In a lot of ways and without any kind of effort on her part, my mom “created a pull”.  She didn’t tell me too much about herself.  She just carried herself with poise, grace, determination, pride and love.  She was all the things a grown woman should be in my mind and in my eyes and without dangling it in front of me… she made me want to be as much like her as I could possibly be.  There were some things about myself that I’d never be able to shrug off that were quintessentially ME – the social butterfly, the commensurate performer, the boy-crazy little girl…  Those were just parts of me that I had to know were uniquely mine and not like her at all.  But everything else?  I wanted to emulate her.  The wit.  The style.  The mystery.  The cool-under-pressure.  Personality wise, she was a female James Bond (to me).  And of course – while I learned more and more about her very human personality and flaws as the years passed, it took a very long time to get me to the point where she wasn’t just about able to walk on water in my opinion.

That same mystery brought certain distance between us though.  While  I was always aware that my mom was never supposed to be my “friend” or my “pal” – I felt she left the earth without me really KNOWING who she was.  There was a whole other woman that existed before the married mother I came to idolize.  There was the single, gorgeous,  adventurous youngster growing up in Haiti who had a penchant for wearing short things and was always thinking about her cousins and family and showed it by visiting and chatting with them often.    The woman who existed before my father married her.  I only get glimpses of her in stories from her counterparts and cousins who are still with us.  Making the myth of my mom even more elusive and glamorous.

I don’t know what this little one is going to think of me.  I might be so busy wanting her to love me as much as I loved my mom that I’d do all the wrong things… say all the wrong things.  She’d just end up being a Daddy’s Girl… and maybe not thinking much of me at all.  I know that I think she’s the bees knees already…  I guess… I just have to be myself and hope that she loves me just as much.

*

It changes how you look at everything in life.   How you react to folks and interact with them.  Nothing is ever interaction for the sake of living life.  You start to look at it (or… at least I do) as the memories you’ll look back on one day when this person isn’t around anymore.   And I try harder to hold on to these images in my mind so that I have something to keep me company in those times.  The memories for later that I create now.

I touch the madonna chain my mom… left to me – because she didn’t give it to me.  And my hand drifts down just a bit to touch my belly, now full with expectation.  And I find myself stuck in between.  Right in the middle passage of this strange cycle of life.  The loss of my mom’s life… the anticipation of a new one to start.  And I am living moments between them both.

Sidenote: Hindsight makes you examine things a little more carefully when you have new information.   Nightmares are sometimes harbingers of good tidings – but you place them in the frame of your current knowledge and they scare you because you don’t have all the information.  I look back at that dream and realize, they were mentally removing everything chemical… everything artificial… making way for the natural miracle that was about to take place.  I see that so clearly now.  But with lack of information and foresight… their presence and actions in my dreams scared me to death.

Grandma used to tell me that nothing is forever in this world.  And I heard her… but wasn’t listening.  I didn’t want to believe that good things weren’t forever too… wonderful people and happy experiences and the tangible personal warmth of bodily affection in the form of hugs and kisses and tender moments with your loved ones.  As good as all those things are – they HAVE to be forever…. right?

No.  But the memories of those things and the actual feeling of love created from those instances I sincerely believe transcend this existence and go with you… wherever your spirit is.

My heart is heavy and hurting right now as I observe a dear friend and sister go through what I went through.  I wouldn’t wish it on a mortal enemy.  And while we tell ourselves we know of the possibility of the outcomes – we’re NEVER prepared for the instance that takes the physical presence of our loved ones away.  There is a deep seated hurt / numbness / inconsolable void that takes over your function and while the words of comfort from the community swirl about your mind and soul – none of them can say what you want to hear.  “She’ll be back.  This is only temporary…”  or “Here’s a number to reach her while she’s gone”  or better yet – “this is just a nightmare – you’ll be waking up soon”.

I am trying to empty my head so my heart will function today.

*

The dream kept me tossing and turning all night long as my heart who longs to see my mom again wrestled with my mind that knows it’s best not to unearth the dead… literally.  So I asked the question on Facebook to see what others think.  I’m sure some movie house will steal the idea for a movie down the line – they always pick at my brain for the best ideas *snickers*  But it was such an interesting situation… because I always say I’d give anything to see my mom again…  But would I?

*

In the first trimester, it would go SOOOO SLOWLY – mostly because every  moment is riddled with anxiety and nervousness and fear about if you’ll make it through to the 2nd trimester.  2nd trimester goes by at a normal pace.   You’re worrying WAY less… you’ve managed to let off some steam by letting people know the good news (and bad because now you can be all sorts of sick and anxious w/o feeling self conscious).  But then the ramp up to the big show begins.  The 3rd trimester is just out of touch and I feel that I’ve been at this 25 / 26 week mark now for about 3 weeks. LOL  It’s in my nature to rush things along…  I guess ever since I was a little child, plaguing my mom with questions about what it’s like to be a grown up and what it would be like to have my period and what it would be like to get married and move out and have a job and not be in school anymore.  You would think by now that I’d have the time and patience to just wait for stuff.  Trop presse pas fait  jour l’ouvrie. I know mommy.  I’m learning to be more patient.

I had a SERIOUS bout of missing her last night.  My dear sweet godsend of a hubby decided it was time to “tackle the office” – he’s not a pack rat.  AT ALL.  But I am.  And he witnessed how bad it can get by having to help my parents through their packrat-ism.  Or at least my mom.  Dad wasn’t so bad with his… but he also wasn’t as willing as Earl to help mom dig out.  So every month or so, he dedicates a good amount of time to helping me dig out of my own paper grave.  The office has been stacked up with stuff for a while.  Originally, we were going to clear it out to make room for a nursery.  But we cannot, no matter what we do, control the temperature in that half of the apartment.  So the nights that it’s cold… our little baby would freeze.  And summer nights, she would bake to death.  So we’ll have her in our bedroom until we move out.  But he wanted the office to be clear because as my belly gets bigger – it’s MUCH harder for me to scrunch over and do the freelance work I need to do over my computer.  So he dug out the space around my old computer (did a FANTASTIC job) but in the process unearthed some more memories that I wasn’t quite ready to see yesterday.  A small white envelope that has seen it’s share of wear and tear.  On the outside in crude black marker it exclaimed “To My Mother: The Maker Of ME”  This was obviously one of my many exercises in learning to write… so I had to be about 5 or 6 years old.  In my brief homemade thank you card written on a 3 x 5 piece of index card in blue pen I thanked for all that she’d done for me: “making me, giving me life, buying my toys” and professed that she “made life so satisfying”  and that I loved her.  (silly me with my big words).  I broke down.  This is the reason I don’t give cards anymore.  It seems terrible of me.

When grandma died and we had to go through her apartment, there was a huge envelope – you know for those absurdly large greeting cards that they sell at Hallmark.  We’d given her one of those through the years.  But inside that envelope was ANY AND EVERY CARD my brother, my mom and I had ever given the woman.  And in all the years of writing these cards, I never thought for ONE MINUTE that I’d be taking them back.  It warmed my heart to know that they meant so much that she kept them all (i mean ALL of them).  But it hurt too profoundly to have to reclaim them.

So i cried for a good while yesterday, missing mommy with all my heart.  Wishing she was here.  I had way less lonely moments when she was around because she was always available to just chat about nothing.. or let me listen to her watch tv.  But this bottomless feeling is just without resolve.  At the end of the tears and the feeling sorry for myself and the wishing I could call her – there’s no resolution.  I’m still without her and always will be, no matter how many tears or breath taking sobs.  No amount of pain I’ll feel will revive her … or wake me out of this reality where she’s actually still here with me.  And every day, more of her shows up in me that I can’t control; good things… bad things.  All her.

2 more weeks until the 3rd trimester.  Maybe I’ll learn to slow down and document everything happening so that I can regale the little one with tales of her arrival and focus less on the pain and sadness.

*

2 years.

There’s only so long that I can commemorate death. I’m not that way.
Even the world completely changes. The night you left, there was a full moon out. Last night? I stood on an unobstructed beach at night and no trace of the moon. But I kept seeing little remembrances of you everywhere. Le Creuset in the store. How I obsess (like you did) about fixing the bed. Knowing how to behave in “society” – even though society doesn’t really do it the way you taught anymore LOL. You’re always with me. You visit me in dreams. I remember all the lessons you taught – especially the one you had to share with me most: trop presse pas fait jour l’ouvrie (hurrying doesn’t make the day start).

It’s hard for me to “commemorate” the day you LEFT… rather than celebrate all that your life gave me. Your birthday is just a mere month away. I think I much rather celebrate your life.

But I acknowledge this is the day you ascended. And I still miss you as much… if not more. It does get easier… but not in the way we’re used to this kind of thing being easier. Easier means – it’s not all consumming anymore…. but on the days that it does trap your mind….

well. those are very hard days.

I’m still here thinking about you, Mommy. I wrote you a couple of posts this year. You popped in and out of my dreams to work with me… work on me… comfort me… warn me. Just like you did in life. I miss most being able to talk to you. It’s hard to realize after all this time that you were indeed the best friend I’d ever had.

I really miss you li’l mommy.

Love you always

*